Is it possible that the Six Nations decider in Cardiff at the weekend represented a new high tidemark for the use of crowd shots as a kind of laughter track, or response-prompt for those of us at home?

There were certainly a lot of them and, interestingly, it was mostly the same people. There was one pair of women in particular, wearing daffodil hats, who got more close-up air-time on Saturday afternoon than Owen Farrell.

At a rough estimate, this couple were on our screens for a total of 27½ minutes, all told, and, at that rate, and given the